Ekaterina Zharinova is a contemporary dance artist, curator, and scholar from Yekaterinburg, Russia. From 2000 to 2005, Ekaterina danced with the Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, touring across the country and abroad. Since 2006, she has been creating work independently and in collaborations to present her choreography nationally and internationally. From 2007 to 2017, she ran the Small Format Festival in Yekaterinburg, which focused on contemporary dance and performance art accommodating dance artists from other cities in Russia and Europe as well as the United States.

Ekaterina Zharinova holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics from the Ural State University in 1999 and 2001 respectively. She was a Fulbrighter at the SUNY Purchase Dance Conservatory in 2007-08. In January 2017, Ekaterina received her M.F.A. in Dance from the George Washington University, being awarded the fellowship and 2017 C.A.S.T. Award there. Currently, she is completing her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at the University of California, Davis. Her research interests lie at the intersection of dance, mathematics and digital technology as well as dance and society covering such topics as ‘minor dance’ and ‘stochastic choreography’ among others.